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Swindon Cup

Swindon Cup

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 7:51 pm

by Probably Shirts

Prospecting for silver in Swindon brings no rewardWith a distinct lack of both clean sheets and points on the board, the Many Shades of Grey's journey back from Swindon on the 19th August was something of an autopsy rather than a celebration. The conclusion, and recommendation to the Coroner, was that County Championship players shouldn’t play in Twenty20 matches.Although “headless chickens” is a touch unfair, it serves another analogy in that being more used to wide open spaces and three touch football, your free-range walking footballers certainly didn’t thrive in the indoor battery environment of cages and unlimited touch that PlayFootball Swindon provided.

Opening against Wiltshire 1, the County first team, drawn from across the county, we found ourselves 5-0 down at half-time and “lucky to have nil”. Deciding that we needed to take more shots - as the Special One says, “You can’t win a raffle if you don’t buy a ticket” - Stew Russell took a pot shot straight from second half kick-off, and one wicked deflection later we saw an unlikely comeback on the cards. Then they scored two more, and the comeback didn’t happen. So it finished 7-1.The next game was against Wiltshire 3, their third team, drawn from across the county, and we quickly went into a 2-0 lead courtesy of Pete Brown’s double. Things were looking up. Then just before half-time they got one back. In the space of two second half minutes Wiltshire 3 managed to score three more, and although Pete managed to complete his hat-trick (he only scores hat-tricks, that or nothing!), it wasn’t enough and the game finished in a 4-3 defeat.Next up were SC Wootton, and once again we were undone by some slick inter-passing and off-the-ball movement. In the blur of it all, it is difficult remember the half-time score, but the final score was another comprehensive defeat, this time by 5-1, with our goal coming from a smart Lloyd Fowler finish.Now came our final game, and we knew that we couldn’t come second or third in the five-team group, and therefore the semi-final and final were out of our reach. It was against Keynsham, who had previously beaten Wilts 3 quite convincingly. Déjà vu came upon us again, and we found ourselves 4-0 down at half-time. However a little more determination in the second half, coupled with another Lloyd Fowler goal, meant that we ended up at least winning another half of a match, the final score being 4-1 to Keynsham.The squad for this tournament, depleted by late injuries to Steve Hall and Rich Bishop, was the shell-shocked Colin Jeffery in goal, who was let down by any combination of: Barry Ingram, Pete Dolamore, Stew Russell, Jeff Pickering, Lloyd Fowler, and Pete Brown.